About Step-Up

What is the Step-Up Program?

Step-Up is a nationally recognized domestic violence counseling program for teens that have been violent with family members. Violent behavior includes threats, intimidation, property destruction, degrading language and physical violence. The goal of Step-Up is for youth to stop using violent behavior and to replace abusive with respectful behavior so that all family members feel safe at home.

The overall goal of Step-Up is to stop the cycle of family violence. Domestic violence can begin in the teen years with abuse of family members, as well as intimate partners, and continues on into adult relationships. Changing violent and abusive behavior during adolescence helps prevent continuing the cycle of violence.

Step-Up has two programs: group counseling for youth and parents, and safety planning for families of youth in detention before their release home.

What is Step-Up Group Counseling?

Step-Up developed a unique 21 session skills-based curriculum used in a group setting with youth and parents. Teens and parents both come to group once a week for 90 minutes. Teens work in a youth group to learn skills to prevent the use of violent and abusive behavior and replace it with respectful behavior. Parents attend a parent group where they learn safety planning and parenting skills to support their youth in using nonviolent behavior. Together parents and teens learn and practice skills for respectful communication and problem solving.

For more information see Why Does Step-Up Work? To view the curriculum see Step-Up Curriculum.

How Can I Attend Step-Up?

Call Step-Up at 206-296-7841 to make an appointment for an intake interview. Your family history and background is important so we understand your specific family needs. We also want to make sure the program is right for you.

What is the Safety Plan?

Some parents are physically afraid, for themselves or other family members, to have their youth return home from detention when they have been arrested for violence with a family member. In 2006, at the request of Juvenile Court, Step-Up developed the Safety Plan Project, an intervention that includes:

• Assessment of the family’s safety concerns
• Teaching of safety skills to both youth and parents
• Assisting parents with developing a plan for safety to reduce risk of harm to family members.
• Assisting youth with developing a ‘Safety Plan’, which is a step-by-step plan to prevent the use of violence and abuse.
• Youth is released with a Safety Plan agreement signed by youth and parent.

The intervention helps youth get out of detention earlier. Prior to the Safety Plan Project, youth were held in detention longer when parents expressed concern about release for safety reasons. Safety planning prevents re-offenses by the youth that would bring them back to juvenile detention.

How Can I Get a Safety Plan?

Call Step-Up at 206-296-7841.

Does Step-Up Work?

Evaluations of Step-Up have shown a significant reduction in the use of violent and abusive behavior in youth who complete the program. Step-Up collects data from teen/parent participation surveys, teen/parent behavior checklists and teen/parent observation tools to examine changes in behavior, attitude and knowledge over the course of treatment.

Step-Up uses a pre and post evaluation tool to measure the youth’s violent and abusive behavior before and after the program. A Behavior Checklist is administered at the intake interview and the last session of the program. Both the youth and parent rate the youth’s use of specific violent and abusive behaviors on a scale of 1-5. Every year since 2000, when the Behavior Checklist was first administered, results have shown significant declines in the youth’s use of violent and abusive behavior upon completion of the program.

An evaluation in 2005 by Organizational Research Services (ORS), an independent evaluation and research firm, showed significant reduction in violent and abusive behavior and lower long term recidivism rates for youth who completed Step-Up than comparison groups.

Key findings from the ORS evaluation include:

• “Our analysis of short term teen and parent outcomes demonstrated significant improvements in attitudes, skills and behaviors over the course of the intervention. Specifically, the assessment of the Teen Behavior scales related to different types of behavior indicated significant declines in the extent to which youth engaged in such behaviors in family situations.”

• Step-Up Diversion youth who completed the program had lower recidivism rates (Filings, Convictions and DV Filings) than the Comparison Diversion sample at 18 months.

• “Those youth who completed the Step-Up interventions have lower recidivism rates than youth who did not complete the intervention or dropped out prior to the completion of the curriculum. At 18 months we find that the rates of Referrals, Filings, DV Referrals and DV Filings are substantially lower for the Completers. In fact, the average number of DV Referrals and DV Filings is less than half that of the Non-completers. After 12 months, the average number of Filings among Non-Completers is twice as high as the average among Completers.”

• “There is evidence of differences in long term recidivism between the Step-Up JPC (Juvenile Probation Counselor) and the Comparison JPC youth at both 12 and 18 months. In particular, the average number of Felony Referrals is significantly higher for the Comparison youth and the effect of the intervention remains significant in the multivariate regression model. Furthermore, we observe lower rates of DV Referrals and DV Filings among participant youth.”

Why Does Step-Up Work?

Step-Up is a specialized program that focuses solely on stopping violent and abusive behavior. Keeping the focus on behavior change and teaching skills to help make the changes, along with the expectation that they can do it, helps teens succeed. Youth who come to group quickly learn that behavior change is expected and possible. They meet other youth who have been attending group who have made behavior changes; they listen to them, or their parent, talk about how they are handling things differently now, along with observing their effort in the group. Getting to know other youth that are struggling with the same behavior issues and observing their efforts to change motivates a newcomer to begin the process of his or her own behavior change.

Self-awareness of behavior is a keystone of the program and is the first step in change. Step-Up helps youth pay attention to their behavior every day and report to group about how they were abusive and respectful to their family members (see Keystone of Step-Up Curriculum: Abuse and Respect Wheels). Each week they make a personal goal about a specific behavior they will work on to help them stay respectful and non-violent during the next week. Reporting back to the group promotes accountability and the opportunity for positive feedback from group members. Youth learn skills each week to help them succeed in meeting their goals of non-violence and respect.

Parents learn how to keep family members safe, how to effectively respond when their teen is violent or abusive, along with skills to support their youth in using respectful behaviors. Parents gain skills that help them re-establish authority with their teen and promote mutual respect and problem solving.

Step-Up believes that youth are more capable of change when their counseling is focused on specific behavior changes that are consistently addressed every week. Youth are also more successful when their parent or caregiver is involved in their learning.

Why Group Counseling?

There are many benefits to group counseling:

• Youth is accountable to the group about their behavior every week
• Youth and parents learn from each other by listening, observing and giving feedback
• Learning is reinforced by watching other youth and parents practice skills
• Ongoing group provides opportunity for older members to model behaviors for new members
• Observing youth in group succeed provides motivation to others
• Each week youth face a group people who are interested in how they are doing – asking questions, giving ideas and support, and clapping about success